Kansas lawmakers differ on meaning of school funding ruling

Jonathan Shorman

Thursday

Mar 2, 2017 at 3:30 PM

OVERLAND PARK – Lawmakers with a focus on education reacted to the Kansas Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that schools are inadequately funded with a mix of skepticism and relief, and diverged on how the Legislature should respond.

A handful of northeast Kansas lawmakers spoke at a Thursday evening forum in suburban Kansas City, potentially the first public gathering of lawmakers since the Supreme Court issued the ruling earlier in the day. The event, organized by Stand Up Blue Valley, which promotes the Blue Valley school district, drew several dozen attendees and lawmakers were asked to react to the ruling.

Sen. Molly Baumgardner, a Louisburg Republican who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said she hopes Senate leadership will say soon they are ready to form a committee focused on education funding.

A spokeswoman for Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, confirmed she plans to form such a committee. The spokeswoman, Morgan Said, said Wagle will form the committee once the Legislature passes a balanced budget.

Baumgardner said her committee has had hearings on the components that made up the school finance formula that was in place prior to 2015, when lawmakers put schools on a temporary block grant system that will expire after the current school year.

“There are quite a few school districts out there that would love to keep a version of that old formula,” Baumgardner said. “But what the Supreme Court decision said today, to me, was two different things: One, we’re not going back to the old formula. And two, we most certainly aren’t sticking with the block grants.”

Baumgardner said she had feared that lawmakers might push for extending the block grants. However, in statements reacting to the ruling, both House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, Gov. Sam Brownback and Wagle emphasized the need to find a new school funding solution.

The court’s ruling didn’t provide a specific figure that the Legislature must add to make school funding adequate as required by the Kansas Constitution. An attorney for the school districts that sued the state in the case, known as the Gannon lawsuit, has placed the figure at $800 million or more.

Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Stilwell Republican who sits on the House Education Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, questioned whether the court ruling requires additional funding.

“They did not put an amount. They just put the funding mechanism needs to address this,” Tarwater said. “So it’s my fear that it’s going to be Johnson County funding the rest of the state again. We don’t necessarily have to put more money into the school system.”

He said the court has asked the state to address the minority and financially challenged students struggling academically. “The funding mechanism has to address the underprivileged of the state,” Tarwater said.

Earlier in his remarks, Tarwater said it is his opinion that “Johnson County funds this entire state.”

Rep. Melissa Rooker, a Fairway Republican on the House Education Committee and the House K-12 Education Budget Committee, struck a different chord. She said a passage in the opinion about the history of education cuts in the state had resonated with her.

Rooker quoted one part of the ruling where the justices found the impact of funding losses “endemic, systemic and statewide.” The impact is being felt everywhere, she said.

“This opinion spends a lot of time focusing on the fact that money, in fact, does matter,” Rooker said.

Sen. Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Republican on the Senate Education Committee, said she wasn’t surprised by the ruling. She said she believes the state must appropriate additional spending for education.

Lawmakers must look at the whole picture of education, she said.

“We do have to address the education on the lower end, whether it’s because of poverty, English language learners, special education disabilities,” Sykes said. “But we also have to make sure we’re also pushing those on the upper level, too.”

Although there were no Democratic lawmakers on the Stand Up Blue Valley panel, in statements on Thursday both House Minority Leader Jim Ward and Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley said lawmakers needed to get to work on fulfilling the ruling.

“Now, more than ever, Governor Brownback and Republican legislative leaders must stop playing political games and get serious about fully funding our children and grandchildren’s education,” Hensley said.